I received a nugget this morning as I was reading the Word and spending time with the Lord. I don’t know if I can articulate what the Lord shared with me easily but I will try.
We know that the book of Luke is volume one and that the book of Acts is volume two. We know this because in the 1st verses of each chapter in both books (Luke and Acts) was written to the same Roman official (Theopolis) and both books were written by Luke. We also know that the reason these two books were written was to defend Christianity and to defend Paul who was in jail for preaching Christianity. The book of Luke talks about what Jesus did before his death and resurrection and Acts talks about what happened after Jesus rose from the dead through about the first 30 years of the church. So both books combined deal with about 33 years of history….which was also the age Jesus was when he was murdered (I found that interesting).
We also know that it was illegal to preach any new religion without getting it legalized by Rome. And the reason Luke was writing these books was to show Rome that this was not a new religion as the Jews were proclaiming but this was the same Judaism that the Jews believed and that Jesus simply fulfilled the scriptures that the Jews believed (which is our old testament).
Ok, with all that said I was reading Luke chapter 4. In the end of chapter three is where Jesus is baptized and chapter four is where he goes into the wilderness and fast for 40 days. As he is fasting he is tempted and tested by the enemy of our souls. Once that ends he leaves the wilderness in the power of the Spirit of God and begins his three year ministry.
The Old Testament brought us the law. “Do this or that and you will live or die...” And Jesus brings in the law of grace. “Because you can’t do the law….this is what God will do…” etc.
This is what the Lord showed me.
Moses represents the Law…in Deut. 9:9 Moses is on a mountain and is fasting for 40 days while he receives the law.
Elijah represents the prophets of the Old Testament. After he destroyed the false prophets of Baal he runs for his life. He eats some food and in 1Kings 19:8 he takes off and doesn’t eat for 40 days.
Then there is Jesus who again represents the Law of Grace; he also fast for 40 days in Luke 4:2. We also know that the number 40 is the number for judgment and that the Lord is 3 in 1 (Father Son and Spirit). So you have three different people representing three parts of the scripture and we know that the whole of scripture proclaims God’s judgment. So you also have:
The Father = Who represents the Law
The Spirit = Who represents the Prophets
The Son = Who represents the Law of Grace
Each of these three parts of scripture brings a form of judgment and accountability to every person. You have all three parts of the God head represented through our entire cannon of scripture (The Law and the Prophets and the Law of Grace).
Going back to the Luke text; Jesus fasted. And we also know that Moses and Elijah fasted. In Luke chapter 9 we see Moses, Elijah and Jesus all together on the mount our transfiguration. So you have all three parts of the scripture (in a sense) dialoging over what’s about to happen with Jesus going to the cross.
We know that in Romans 3:19-23 it says that you cannot be justified before a holy God by doing the works of the law. It says that the law (the Old Testament) was given to us to show us how dirty we are. The Law was given to us to prove that we have violated God’s moral law of righteousness and that we are condemned and stand guilty before God (Romans 3:19-20).
In Romans 3:21 though it says that there is a righteousness that we can have that the Old Testament can’t give us and that the Law (Moses) and the prophets (Elijah) have witnessed this righteousness (I believe the righteousness that they witnessed was Jesus himself who brings in the law of grace just like in Mathew 17:1-8).
In the middle of Luke chapter four Jesus quotes from the Old Testament. He reads from Isaiah 61:1-2 and stops in the middle of verse two. Everything that Jesus read was about grace. And right where Jesus stopped reading in Isaiah deals with Gods judgment in the end times. So what Jesus said in laymen’s terms was this:
“Dude here I am to bring the rest of God’s plan for mankind as I bring the gospel of grace. In the future when I return I will bring the judgment to come but for right now I am bringing grace.”
Everyone who was there in Luke four and was listening to Jesus on that day (Luke chapter 4:22) marveled at Jesus’ gracious words. In the Greek the term "gracious words" is literally “Words of Grace”.
So here we are you and I who now are recipients of the grace that Jesus brought to mankind in Luke chapter four. I thought this was pretty cool.
Anyways, I don’t know if this makes any sense to you, but it sure makes a lot of sense to me….lol and I thought all of this was interesting. The Lord simply opened my eyes this morning to all of this and I was blown away at the grace of God found in that text.
I didn’t even touch on the whole testing in the wilderness that Jesus experienced and how it relates to the same testing that Eve went through in Genesis chapter three. Eve dealt with temptation the wrong way and sinned and Jesus dealt with it the right way and had victory….that is a whole new nugget to dig into. If you are interested; then I would be more than happy to share that whole thing that God did in that part of the text too.
I better cut this short as I know that long blogs like this can be too much sometimes. I hope you are blessed and ministered to through this and I pray that I was able to share this clearly so that you don’t walk away more confused now.
